


you're buried so they say

by leonshardt



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4597569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonshardt/pseuds/leonshardt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A battlefield is no place for a doctor, but Medic is a great deal of things besides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're buried so they say

**Author's Note:**

> i spent a long time doing fuck-all nothing until i wrote this in the airport. buy me mvm tickets so i won't have to do this anymore

_  
_

_Would you like to sit down?_ Medic asks him, the first, second, third time he shows up, half lost and half sure, not quite ready for sleep and too tired for dreams. Medic’s gloves glisten under the operating lights like wet ink, black turning red as blood drips down his wrists in waves. Sometimes Heavy watches, arms folded awkwardly in his too-small chair, and wonders between him and Medic, whose hands have more blood on them.

“Of course, your presence is no bother at all,” Medic says casually, “Science is as much of a performance as it is a tool.”

So Heavy tries to be the best audience he can, lumbering carefully through a medical bay full of delicate instruments that were never built for someone like him in mind. He may not understand the operations Medic is always so fascinated with, but there is something steady and reassuring about the way he can just sit and listen and _exist_ at this time of the night, when everyone else in the base is busy trying very hard not to exist at all.

 _I should tell him_ , Heavy thinks, the same way he does every night before turning to leave, the way he thinks of him yet again as he drifts off to sleep and wonders what would happen if he did tell him, if they had ever lived in the kind of universe where men like them could be alright, in the end.

“Good night, doktor,” he says, and Medic smiles, does not wipe the blood from his cheek, does not speak at all. Heavy turns, swallowing down seven years of words that taste like bad medicine and linger for even longer.

Door handles and gun handles, they all feel the same after a while.

 

 

Medic saves him, and then saves him again, and again, and Heavy stops counting in debts and favors and instead keeps mark of how many times he can die and live again and still only be a man. The dirt is too hot under his back, sun-scorched and cracked dry and so very, very far away. Medic crouches over his form, chin dipped low, muttering something inaudible under his breath. Heavy would call out if his throat weren’t torn out, if his lungs weren’t already filling with blood.

Medic reaches over and touches Heavy’s neck, ever so gently, in the bloodied spot right above where his throat used to be, as if checking for a failing pulse. Heavy doesn’t even feel his touch, doesn’t feel anything anymore if he tries hard enough. _Go back_ , Heavy wants to say, _the team needs you_. But Medic does not move, does not leave his side.

“Next time,” Medic says, “Next time I will fix your heart, make you stronger.”

Heavy can barely make out his voice through the white noise clouding his brain, but the meaning is clear to him, even as his eyes glass over and his pulse stutters and stops. Even the best tools need sharpening, sometimes.

 

 

A battlefield is no place for a doctor, but Medic is a great deal of things besides.

 _Heart implant_ , Medic says, and if Heavy could breathe he would laugh at that. He’s outlived a hundred thousand hearts just like this one, bullet-riddled and fire scorched and brand new, and if Medic ever asked he would gladly admit that his heart was always his to break. If Medic ever asked, he would say that he always knew he’d be put back together, all the little pieces gathered together and mended like factory new, because isn’t that what medics do, in the end?

“There you are,” Medic says, after the healing glow of the medibeam dies down to low hum. “Completely fixed.”

“Yes,” Heavy agrees, and smiles.

 


End file.
